Daniel
by xXDeathIsAPromiseXx
Summary: Seeing spirits everywhere and not being able to tell anyone without being pronounced insane, how long can you cope? Especially when the curse was passed to your son. After a lifetime of being harrassed by the dead, is it time to call it all off?


Those who are dead are not dead, they're just living in my head.

And since I fell for that spell I am living there as well.

-42, Coldplay

Daniel opened his eyes to the first cracks of pale titian light seeping through the blinds of the window and filtering into his consciousness.

Raising his forearm over his eyes he sighed. Leaning his head to the left, he took in the figure of his sleeping wife. Her thin, tiny frame was resting peacefully on her side facing away from him. Her dark hair cast freely across her pale face. Another good 15 minutes she would remain like this until her 7:00am alarm clock set off.

Daniel tugged the edge of the gray comforter closer to her chin, keeping her warm. Rising out of bed, he ran a hand through his black hair. He grabbed some clothes he had set out the previous night and headed into the bathroom.

"Mornin' Dan! You sure you're gonna wear _that_ tie with that shirt?" Greeted the voice of Andy, the dead landlord of Daniel's first apartment.

He didn't even react, conditioned against responding to unwanted dead visitors. Or in this case, unwanted dead personal stalkers.

The dead don't mean it, they just get bored. I mean, hello, they're dead. Not much to do but follow a few loved ones, or people that could_ see_ them.

Daniel had seen dead people all his life. He just learned to accept it. It had become his own living hell though in high school when the dead started noticing that he could see them. He was bombarded with spirits asking for favors and requests. Trying to help them seemed good at first, but after that they just kept coming back. He was forced into hiding, trying to be as inconspicuous as he possibly could.

It was there in high school that he met his wife, Julia. She always said she liked how dark and mysterious he was. If only she knew what he had to go through every day just to maintain the illusion of having a normal life. He could have told her, she probably would think he needed professional help. Instead, her existence became a safehaven for him, knowing there was someone there who maintained a normal life and cared for him, a stability.

They married a few years after high school and had a son, a twin to Daniel, and they named him William. Daniel often worried if this gift, or curse, could possibly be passed to his son, but he soon dismissed this idea as just the worrying of a father. It wasn't until his son at a resteraunt one night announced to his mother that her deceased mother said not to order the fish becase it didn't look fresh. Then he worried.

He tried to explain to Julia that it was just the simple imaginations of a child, nothing more. This seemed to pacify her, but how long before she really started questioning it?

Daniel brought the razor to his throat and carved out paths in the shaving cream with it. Long, winding paths at his throat, concentrated excavations at his jaw and cheeks, and short and precise ones at his upper lip. Shaking the razor out under the water of the running faucet, he looked into his eyes in the mirror reflection wondered how many years he had left in him. 20? 30? 40? He had lived a good amount of already, he had everything he was ever going to accomplish done.

After he had put his clothes on he straightened the knot of his tie. "You're right." He mumbled half to his dead landlord half to himself. He wasn't going to wear that tie, or the clothes he picked out. He remembered that all the meetings for today had been cancelled. Todays work would just be maintenance. His job was repairing the trains down at the station, he knew every train schedule downtown's departure and arrival times by heart.

Going back into his room he pulled open a drawer of the brown wood dresser on the wall opposite the bed. He pulled on his jeans and a dark t-shirt, his mechanics shirt was at work. 'Killian' it said on the name patch, when he first got the shirt they had written his name wrong on it.

Julia was already up, making breakfast no doubt. She wasn't due at the diner for another 2 hours, but she liked to see Will off to school.

Will. He was in high school now. God, don't they grow up fast. He was a freshman, he was having an ok time of it too, nobody beating the crap out of him in the halls. He always hated Mondays, always thought the weekend should be longer. The other day he announced at breakfast that he was going to leave after high school, to go away. This upset his mother, who wanted her baby boy around her at all times. But babies grow up, and this one is growing up to be just like his father, in more ways than just the eye can see.

Jogging down the stairs, he picked up some paperwork from the bottom step and placed it on the kitchen table beside where he sat. "Hey, Dad." Will said inbetween swallowing his mouthful of cereal and reaching for his juice glass. "Hey, sport." Daniel said, tucking into his plate of eggs and bacon, washing it down with swallows of juice.

"Daniel, you're going to choke if you always eat like that." Julia said pointing at him with a spatula as she put dishes in the dishwasher.

"Gets the job done" he shrugged. Will grinned, then hid it from his mother by raising his glass to his mouth. Julia glared anyway. "Don't encourage him"

Scooping up his paperwork under and arm as he got up, he ruffled Will's hair. "Take care of your mother." he said on his way out the door.

"Wait! Your lunch!" Julia thrust a brown paper bag across the kitchen counter to him. The giant orange flowers of the wallpaper were bright enough that a colorblind person could probably still see them. "Thanks" he smiled, grabbing it and closing the door behind him.

Closing the garage door, he pulled out of the driveway in his old black dodge. Re-adjusting the rearview mirror to see in the backseat, he glanced at the 3 spirits occupying the back seat. One was a pale lady with a white blouse and a poodle skirt, another was an old man in an army uniform with blood on the chest portion, the last was an older woman with a rope burn around her neck. "What do you guys want from me?"

"I need you to write a letter to my son, he wants to marry that good-for-nothing son of-"

"My daughter needs to know I didn't kill myself, it was an-"

"I just need you to tell-"

All the ghosts interrupted each other.

"Go find someone else. I'm not going to do anything for you." Daniel said, straightening out the car mirror again.

"It took me years to find a ghost-talker like you. If you think i'm just gonna give up because you don't feel like helping me, you have another thing coming, young man." Said the older woman with the rope burn. Her eyes glittering with anger over her old-lady glasses.

Daniel sighed as he turned onto Pond street. A bit of tracks stretched across the road, the train due to come by in about 10 minutes.

Slowly easing the car to a stop in front of the rain tracks he undid his seat belt and twisted around in his seat.

"I am trying to live a life here. I'm sick and tired of being harassed by people who aren't even alive. The live ones are enough of a hassle. Now, get the hell out of my car!" Daniel shouted the last bit, enraged, he had had enough of this.

The spirits stayed silent until the older woman worked up the nerve to say in a nervous whisper. "We're here for good. We have the rest of your life, and all the time of the afterlife to follow you. We don't _care _what you want."

Daniel stayed silent for a moment, his eyes going from one ghost to another. Settling back in his seat he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, staring ahead.

He could hear the train coming now. Looking down the tracks at where the bend was, the train would never be able to stop in time.

What the hell kind of a life was this?

Shifting the car off of park, he eased it onto the tracks. Then parked the car.


End file.
